From the phenomenal web drama "Forensic Qin Ming" to see Sohu Video's persistence and breakthrough

From its launch on October 13 to its finale on December 15, in the past two months, Sohu's self-produced drama "Forensic Qin Ming" has been played more than 1.35 billion times on Sohu Video, becoming what people call the most popular phenomenal online drama of 2016.

As for Sohu CEO "Digital Hero" Zhang Chaoyang, he will not tolerate any dilution of data. Whether a drama is good or not is ultimately decided by the audience, and whether a drama is worth it is ultimately decided by the market.

According to the "2016 Online Self-produced Drama Industry White Paper" released by the New Media Think Tank, the annual output of online self-produced dramas in 2016 is expected to be 2,079 episodes. Combined with the "inventory" from previous years, the overall market size will exceed 5,000 episodes, an increase of nearly 250 times compared to 2009.

But problems also arise. Although the number of self-produced dramas is increasing year by year, there are not many online dramas that are of truly high quality, remembered by the audience, and recognized by the market.

The video industry is crazy. "Only investment but no return" has almost become a curse for domestic video websites. "Investing hundreds of millions of yuan to purchase the copyright of a drama is simply crazy. It is impossible to recover the cost through advertising." Zhang Chaoyang recently said that Sohu Video's top priority is to stop the losses, turn it from a bottomless pit into a bottomed pit, and shift the video's profit model from patch advertising to the Netflix model of self-production and charging users.

Cultivate IP and generate revenue for yourself with self-produced dramas

Compared to iQiyi's aggressive investment in self-produced dramas in recent years and Tencent Video's unlimited "buy, buy, buy" model, Sohu Video's production volume has increased slowly, and it is more inclined to win by stability. As the earliest video website to bet on the concept of self-produced dramas, Sohu also fully demonstrated Zhang Chaoyang's foresight in the video industry. "In the past, online dramas were like using basins to collect the leftover water from TV stations. Now online dramas can develop independently, with traffic of over 1 billion and become works that make a big splash in the city."

Sohu Video has accumulated some high-quality IP resources over the years, such as Dapeng's "Diaosi Series", "So Young", "Wuxin: The Monster Killer", "Close Your Eyes When He Comes", etc.

The same is true for "Forensic Qin Ming", which is the first online drama on forensic themes in China and a new attempt by Sohu Video in the field of self-produced dramas in 2016. Regarding the excellent results of "Forensic Qin Ming", Zhang Chaoyang said that the popularity of "Forensic Qin Ming" is the initial success of Sohu Video in a series of self-produced dramas, which means that Sohu Video will begin to usher in new progress in content creation.

The drama once occupied the top positions in major data charts and became a hot topic on the Internet. The total Weibo topic #網剧法医秦明# has 1.13 billion views and 845,000 discussions; the sub-topics #法医秦明#, #法医秦明张若昀#, #法医秦明大结局#, etc. have a total of 1.13 billion views and 1.278 million discussions, and have been on the Weibo topic list and hot search list many times; the peak number of Baidu searches for "法医秦明" exceeded 450,000 in a single day.

In terms of profit-making methods, most domestic video websites currently refer to the Netflix model to break through the single model of video websites relying solely on advertising for profit. According to Marco, general manager of Sohu Video Copyright Film and Television Center, the core income of "Forensic Qin Ming" does not come from advertising placement, but is more inclined to user payment. Now user payment is becoming more and more of a trend and scale.

The super star-making ability

Faced with the rising prices of actors in recent years, compared with the self-produced dramas of other video websites, Sohu Video is more willing to invite some young actors to play the leading roles and invest more in screenwriting and production, so as to improve the quality of self-produced dramas.

There are also some chaos in the current video industry. "The current content production field seems to be very popular. For example, we have made some good dramas, and the first season was very successful. We also signed follow-up contracts with these actors. But after the success of the first season, as more wealthy websites got involved, some actors violated the contract and stopped acting."

"What is the final result? Everyone flocks to one place, the prices of the main creative actor team are sky-high, our entire audio-visual industry suffers, and the actors' incomes are ridiculously high." Zhang Chaoyang said that as a result, the industry is in chaos and loses its creativity.

This is also an important reason why Sohu Video dares to use newcomers.

For hit self-made dramas, although the leading actors are either newcomers or third-tier actors, and some are not even professional actors, these actors can often quickly stand out through a high-quality self-made drama.

For example, Bai Jingting in "So Young", Han Dongjun in "Wuxin: The Monster Killer", Zhang Ruoyun, Jiao Junyan and Li Xian in "Forensic Qin Ming", most of these young actors became famous thanks to Sohu's self-produced dramas.

I have also witnessed Sohu Video's amazing ability to create stars many times. Often at the launch conference of a drama, some newcomers have no fans to cheer them on. However, just a few dozen days after the broadcast, a large number of fans can be seen gathering at the entrance of the venue at the celebration party to cheer for the star-born idols.

Zhang Chaoyang sometimes joked that he hoped several actors could sign with Sohu, saying, "As long as you cooperate with Sohu, you will always be online."

Sohu Video has its own logic when it comes to actor selection. Ma Ke said, "Sohu Video mainly looks at the subject matter. If we are shooting Ghost Blows Out the Light, we will also invite first-line actors, but they must be suitable. For example, we will never invite William Chan to act in a two-dimensional drama."

Ability to control self-produced dramas

According to statistics, in 2015, 25 original dramas adapted from IP attracted a total of 19.64 billion views, and the 23 IP-adapted dramas released in the first eight months of 2016 attracted 23.867 billion views. Overall, 28.71% of the IP-adapted dramas on the entire network have harvested 82.43% of the views, which shows that IP dramas have an amazing traffic-generating effect.

However, the price growth rate of IPs has even exceeded the housing prices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. If you want to make a good self-produced drama, it is far from enough to just spend a lot of money to hoard IPs. Some IPs bought cannot even be broadcast at all and are notified to be taken off the shelves. The key depends on the creative team's ability to control the self-produced drama.

Ma Ke said, "Sohu has always attached great importance to innovation, which may be different from other websites. We pay more attention to innovation and quality, and we have a relatively global vision and contemporary spirit on the spiritual level." And don't follow the traditional TV drama creation routines. She believes that netizens do not have time to consume routines.

Although there were rumors that the show Forensic Qin Ming was taken offline due to its excessive content, it was still successfully broadcast. "This is a result of the two investors and our platform's grasp of the entire creative principle. This is also a sign of professionalism in creation. There are many shows on the market that were launched and then taken offline. Netizens feel very sorry about this, and the creators feel very sorry about this as well," said Marco.

As a "high EQ" video website, Zhang Chaoyang's strategy has always been to maximize the limited budget, clean data, no over-packaging, trust in young actors, and timely publicity, which have become the keywords for Sohu's self-produced dramas. For the video industry, taking too big a step can easily hurt the bones. Using small and beautiful self-produced dramas to win steadily is Sohu Video's persistence and the key to its keeping the high ground in the video industry.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.